Tag Archives: Garagiste Fesitval

This marks the seventh year that the Garagiste Festival: Southern Exposure (February 8th to 10th.) has showcased the wines of some of California’s best small production winemakers in one of California’s most charming small towns, which is celebrating its 107th anniversary this year. Solvang is in the heart of the renowned Santa Ynez Valley wine country, just north of picturesque Santa Barbara, California.

“America’s best wine festival meets one of America’s best historic small towns for the seventh year in a row…what could make for a better wine country weekend?” said Garagiste Festival Co-founder Doug Minnick. “There is a special place in our hearts for Solvang, and for the amazing small production winemakers who pour at this venue. Solvang, and the beautiful Veteran’s Memorial Hall, lend such a charming and intimate setting for attendees to chat and taste with the winemakers and owners who will be pouring their hard-to-find wines. We love the diversity of the wines poured here, with multiple micro-climates, grape varieties and innovative blends represented.”

“Over 40 winemakers from Santa Barbara County and across California converge at Solvang’s Mission-style Veterans’ Memorial Hall to pour over 150 wines over three days of events which include the continuation of the festival’s ‘Original Garagiste’ seminars, moderated by Garagiste Festival Co-founder and KRUSH radio host, Stewart McLennan, and, this year, featuring Central Coast winemaking legend Ken Brown of Ken Brown Wines.”

The 4th Annual Garagiste Festival: Urban Exposure returns to a new location in Santa Monica on Saturday, July 15th. The venue is a couple of doors up from a big City of Santa Monica parking structure and a short walk from the Expo Line. Festival is known for shining a light on hard-to-find, high quality, micro-production commercial winemakers.

Celebrating its fourth anniversary in Los Angeles, the festival features 50 micro-production, craft wineries from across California – including Santa Barbara, Santa Ynez and SLO counties; Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino, Livermore, and Paso Robles, of course – and is the only wine event on the Los Angeles calendar to exclusively feature high quality, hand-crafted wines from commercial California ‘garagiste’ winemakers.

“The great thing about our Urban Exposure festival is that Angelenos can discover these hard-to-find wineries, taste hundreds of their wines, and meet the winemakers all under one roof — for less than the cost of gas for a trip to wine country,” said Doug Minnick, Co-Founder of The Garagiste Festival. “Besides, the majority of these under-the-radar wineries do not have tasting rooms, are not on “wine country” maps, and are very difficult to find. But we bring them all together for our guests to discover at the Garagiste Festival. There’s nothing else like it.”

Garagiste co-founder, Doug Minnick, is with us to pull the cork on this year’s festivities.

The Garagiste Festival: Urban Exposure returns to The Wiltern theater on July 9th. Over 60+ artisan ‘garagiste’ winemakers from across California, including Santa Barbara, Santa Ynez and SLO counties; Napa and Sonoma counties, and Paso Robles will pour over 200 wines. Over 30% of the wineries are participating in the Los Angeles festival for the first time. Co-founder Doug Minnick uncorks the festivities for us.

Urban Exposure also presents the LA premiere of one of its signature comparison tasting seminars, “Tasting the Winemaker’s Spice Rack,” on the stage of The Wiltern. Rendarrio Vineyards owner and winemaker Ryan Render and Michael Larner, winemaker and owner of the renowned Larner Vineyard, will use side-by-side comparisons to help wine consumers understand, through their taste buds, how different oak treatments – from type to region to toast – can affect the finished product and change the profile of a single wine.

Renowned for their ‘crazy thrill of discovery,’ one-on-one interactions with winemakers, and fun ‘no-snobs-allowed’ atmosphere, Garagiste Festivals offer wine lovers their only opportunity to taste so many small-production, hard-to-find wines, from so many regions, all in one place – over 60% of Urban Exposure winemakers are without a tasting room.

The Metro Purple Line light rail station is right across the street. Talk about convenience…